


Over the Garden Wall: Songs of the Dark Lantern

by earthkidsareweird



Series: Over the Garden Wall But With Reddie [4]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Over the Garden Wall Fusion, Eddie Kaspbrak Breaks an Arm, Eddie Kaspbrak is Bad at Feelings, Losers Club (IT) Friendship, M/M, Minor Bill Denbrough/Richie Tozier, Reddie, Richie Tozier Flirts, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Sad Bill Denbrough, The Unknown (Over the Garden Wall)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22764421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthkidsareweird/pseuds/earthkidsareweird
Summary: Richie and Eddie have made some friends along the way in The Unknown. They arrive at a tavern with Bev, Mike, and Ben only to find Bill hanging around along with some other trouble. That trouble though is more Bowers Gang than what they've come across before.It's Over the Garden Wall but with Reddie Part 4!
Relationships: Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Over the Garden Wall But With Reddie [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1621285
Kudos: 11





	1. I.

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of character list:
> 
> Eddie= Wirt (ish)  
> Richie= Greg (ish)  
> Bev=Beatrice  
> Ben=Miss Langtree (ish)  
> Mike Hanlon=The Woodsman  
> Bill=Fred the Horse  
> Bowers Gang=The Highwayman  
> The Beast=Pennywise

# I.

Ben sees it first. Well, he sees the tavern first, what he never sees is how they almost die. Some wagon carrying hay bales speeds out from a different path the moment Ben stops, pointing about to say, “The Dark Lantern!” 

The wagon manages to swerve out of the way. It knocks Ben over. Whoever is in charge is screaming the whole way, “IT IS UPON ME! IT IS UPON ME!” They’re gone without further explanation. Hay spills over onto the rest of them while Ben sits there. Only Mike turns away from the scene to look into the woods. Nothing is out there but a black turtle crawling out from underneath some leaves, little branches scraping across the shell.

“We should move faster,” announces Mike. “Let’s get inside.”

The sun should be out considering it is daytime. It's pretty dark thanks to some looming storm clouds. Ben nods in agreement and gets up wiping the dirt from his pants.

“I still feel like we should go to Adelaide’s,” says Bev.

“Oh my God! We fucking know!” Richie laughs at this as if it's a joke, it’s not really though. 

Eddie just rolls his eyes and keeps on walking around.

This leaves Richie the only one still standing because even Bev takes flight. “What? I’m hilarious.” George Washington hangs out in his arms and he looks at his frog friend. “Right? You know.”

Everybody is walking again heading towards the tavern. It’s three stories high with a small chimney that’s chugging away with whatever is cooking on the inside. There are a few people standing outside with others sitting in rocking chairs. All of them are smoking and laughing. There are stables off to the side where the wagon that almost killed Ben goes to wait. A few fat drops start to fall from the sky.

Richie rolls his eyes as he’s forced to catch up but then he hears a “R-R-R-Richie?” He stops looking over at the stables. “R-Richie!”

“Hey. . .guys. . .” Eddie, Ben and Mike all stop except they all look ready to keep on moving along and Richie hands George Washington off to Ben. “I’ll catch up, in a minute.”

Meanwhile, Ben, Mike, and Bev all head inside the tavern not noticing how the two of them stop. Richie walks off to the stables following where he heard the R-R-Richies. Eddie signals for his attention doesn’t get it, making him start to walk after the guy.

“Richie! Come on! I’m tired!” Eddie says.

Richie and Eddie stop in front of the stable looking at it. The wagon is still there and all of two horses are around in the stables. It begins to rain a whole lot harder. Eddie uses his hands pretending he is able to use them as an umbrella. This fails because of course, it fails. Not like his hands could protect him from the approaching torrential downpour. 

“Richie! What the fuck? Come on, I wanna get inside!” complains Eddie.

Richie stops a lot closer to the stable looking at one of the horses. “Hey?”

“Yeah, hay is for fucking horses so let’s go now!”

“Bill?” Richie says to the horse he’s staring at.

“Wh-Wh-What are y-y-y-you doing here?” the horse asks.

“Holy. Fucking. Shit. Bill’s a horse!” Richie spins around pointing at the horse while he looks at Eddie. “Eddie! Bill’s a horse.”

“Bill’s a horse? Just fucking shut up, Richie, I’m going inside.”

But Bill says a little louder, “N-N-N-No w-wait! What are y-y-y-ou doing here?”

Eddie moves closer to Richie staring at Bill while mouthing the words, What the fuck? But what he gets to say out loud is the following, “How the fuck did you become a horse?”

“Th-The good w-women of the wo-wo-woods.”

Eddie grabs onto Richie, he’s tugging at his arm not sure if he wants to run away or not. The tavern is so close and the last person he wants to see at the moment is right in front of them but they’re a horse. But Richie doesn’t flinch, not even as Eddie keeps grabbing at his shirt then he goes to grab at the sweatshirt tied around his waist.

“Hey, where have we heard that before?” He looks at Eddie holding onto his hands to get him to stop grabbing onto him. “The good woman of the woods? Hey, no wait. Eddie?! Where’ve we heard that before?”

Neither of them says anything, Bill included. Bev lands in front of them on one of the stable stalls. She glares at them and points at them with her one wing. “What are you doing here? You promised, we get rest at the tavern and then we go to Adelaide’s.”

Richie continues to hang onto Eddie’s hands, his fingers wrapped around his wrist as he looks at Bev then glances at Bill who looks away like he’s just a non-talking horse. After all, Bev’s the only animal they’ve met who talks. Richie makes no comment for some time, so off-beat for him. Also something nobody comments on even though Bill could.

“Yeah, I’ll be in. . .we’ll be in in a sec,” Richie tells Bev.

“Well, hurry up and get a room already so we can get a move on.” She groans and looks over at the horses before looking back at them. “Um, no animals allowed inside.”

“Ok, but, can you give us a second?” Richie states.

“Alone,” adds Eddie.

“Can’t you be alone somewhere else?” replies Bev. “No rain here and I don’t get to be inside.”

“Yeah, come on.” 

Richie still holds onto Eddie, he just hangs onto his one wrist as he starts to walk away. The two dart across the small space between the stables and the tavern. Only Richie looks back while Eddie clenches his teeth. They make it inside at the same time colliding with the door frame. Eddie bounces off a bit, enough for Richie to enter first and him behind. The whole time he’s rubbing his wrist and in such pain. Chances are none of it will end soon.

A lot of the tables are full of grumbling people who all shut up fast when they spot the two there, dripping wet. A woman shrieks at the sight of them. She flings a towel in Richie’s face who catches it when it falls. He holds it gawking at the woman who shakes her head.

“No! No! You will not-You will not be tracking water through here!” she shouts.

Richie stares at her with the towel in hand, he uses it to blindly start patting it on Eddie’s face who flails to get him away. “Um ok, but can we get um two rooms.” Eddie shoves Richie’s hands away taking the towel from him. He uses it to dry his hair off a bit but Richie’s hair, of course, is naturally more sopping wet, all those waves of hair. He plops the towel on Richie’s head who wrinkles his nose and takes it from him. “Just two rooms please.”

The woman shakes her head. “Should’ve gotten here earlier.”

Richie and Eddie look at each other. Richie uses the towel to dry off his glasses. “Ok, so what does that mean? You have no rooms ready? I don’t know how taverns work.”

The woman rolls her eyes and walks off from them. She puts up a finger for them to stay and wait. Richie and Eddie remain in the doorway. It’s raining a whole lot harder. The pitter-patter of it growing a whole lot louder. Those people at all the tables are glaring at them all. Not a word has been said since the two of them walked in other than the shrieking woman. Eddie kicks the floor, not that there isn’t anything for him to kick but he does so anyway.

There’s a staircase behind all of them and Ben walks down. He pauses and waves and makes his way down the rest of the steps. Ben points at an empty table. “Meet here when you get settled in?” His voice cuts through the silence causing all those people to instead whip their heads around to glare at him.

“Tough crowd,” Richie whispers to Eddie.

“Beep, beep, Richie.”

Richie just smirks at him. “I kinda like it more when you say that over shut up.”

The woman makes her way back to the two holding up a key with a little tag on it that says 217. There’s probably not even ten or more rooms above them at the place. She hands it to Eddie since he’s closer. Eddie holds it up looking at the women. Both of them are pretty quiet, and all eyes swivel back at them.

“But you two still got here just in time. Hope you’re some good friends,” the woman says. “I’m the tavern keeper. It’s fifty a night.”

“Fifty of what?” asks Eddie.

Richie takes the key from Eddie. “Cool, so we do have a room?”

“Yeah, you got here just in time for the last one. Like I said, hope you two are good friends. Cockroaches are real big around here, don’t wanna be on the floor.”

“Um, thanks, weird tavern keeper lady.” Eddie looks over at Richie whispering, “I don’t think you’re supposed to say that around food, about the cockroaches.”

“Upstairs.” The tavern keeper walks off and all the muttering starts up again as people mind their own business. Mike passes them on his way down to join Ben at his table saying something. He waves. It looks like he has a key of his own and Ben, too.

Richie shows the key off to Eddie. “Like the Overlook.”

“What’s that?”

“You know like the. . .nevermind.”

“Nevermind what? What’re even talking about?”

“Just a movie I’ve seen Bill. It’s. . .nothing.” 

Richie walks a little faster. The hall is a long stretching one across the entire tavern. There’s door after door after door, but all on one side and little lanterns outside each one. None of the numbers make any sense and one of them looks as if it's a math equation with a little e to an i and a pie plus a one and all of it equal to zero. At the far end of the hall on a single door knocked, 217, the two stop. No lantern waits outside their room. Richie clicks the door open pushing it open. Eddie grabs a lantern from one of the other doors coming up behind Richie after he stops and stares and stands.

“Shit.” Richie looks back at Eddie who stands in the doorway, candle in hand. “We have a problem.”

“Like what kind of problem? Is it a cockroach problem? I hope it’s not a cockroach problem. Do you think they have diseases on them? Cockroaches that is,” replies Eddie. “Because as of now, we have _a lot_ of problems and I think that Beverly is the number one problem then my second problem is my arm.”

Richie shakes his head. “No, this is the number one problem now cause I’m fucking exhausted and you’re fucking exhausted with a broken arm but I’m exhausted and I have George Washington or right now Ben and Mike have George Washington but he’s still my friend.”

Still Eddie stands and moves inside a bit keeping the candle up and he just laughs and laughs a whole lot. Eddie shakes his head while looking at the situation. Of course, of course, it’d be all like this. There’s not a lot in the room, it’s about as sparse as any of them would expect. A plant is in a corner, a table with a place to light another candle, and a single bed in the middle.


	2. II.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Richie chat while Richie almost remembers. . .something.

# II.

Richie doesn’t remember falling asleep. Some odd thought hits him because he said this once to Bill after he overslept almost missing Bill at the arcade. He’d strolled in acting like it was no big deal. There was Bill though, clenching his jaw and all mad. Richie leaned into one of the machines looking at him then leaned into one of the other machines. To think, Bill was there playing Tempest, out of all the choices in the world, he fucking chose Tempest. Richie smiled at him then said, “Sorry, didn’t realize I fell asleep.” To which, Bill looked up, but only after he lost, and all perfect he said, “We often don’t.”

Something about it bothered Richie. The idea, we often don’t realize when we fall asleep. It sounded worse than all the times he found Bill walking his bike around town while muttering: He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghost or something like that. Not that Richie ever really caught what he said, he muttered it and looked away whenever he said any of this then the two would part ways as if they’d never been together in the first place at the arcade or down in the barrens listening to music and throwing rocks or really Bill threw rocks rambling while Richie laid there and smoked.

An OW breaks this story forming in his mind of Bill at the arcade talking all perfect with his dumb ass choice of a game. We often don’t. Richie sits up realizing he kicked Eddie who is lying opposite of him in bed. Richie has one end. Eddie has the other. Eddie even has the one with all the pillows and by the light. He sits there scowling at Richie while reading Tome of the Unknown with no author listed. Richie stares at him for a beat too long.

“What?” snaps Eddie.

But Richie continues to sit and stare without comment. 

Eddie goes back to reading, he basically buries his face in the book. Richie counts to about fifteen before making his next move of slowly inching his foot forward until he pokes Eddie in the face with his toes.

“Jesus Christ, Richie!”

“NO!”

Eddie pushes Richie’s foot away sneering at him. “No what?” 

“Oh, sorry, I thought you were about to tell me to stop so I said no right away because no, I’m not going to stop.”

“Rude.”

“You’re rude!” yells Richie.

“That’s a lie, I’m incredible.

Richie laughs at this, but feels ready to fall back asleep again if he did, he’d probably wake up all over again not realizing he’d been asleep the whole time. To be honest, for some reason, he dreamt he’d been at a football game ready to meet Bill when Eddie showed up talking to some girls who laughed and took off. The two made eye contact and Eddie looks so pissed about something, like real pissed about something, but what? No wait, Eddie never said ‘cause he took off.

_We often don’t._

Richie sits up, he crosses his legs and stares at Eddie tilting his head to the side a bit. Somehow Eddie feels as if this forces him to look up from his book ready to put it away. Richie informs him, “You’re mom was waaaaaay more interesting last night, thought you should know.”

“Shut up, Richie!” And Eddie smashes the book closed. He hops up putting it in a drawer by the bed and hops out of bed about to leave when he says, “Oh yeah, your sister says hi.”

“My sister?”

“Yeah, she’s in the room next door, didn’t you hear us?”

Richie squints at him. “Wait, no, really?”

“No, Richie! It’s a joke! Like you’re joking.”

Richie smirks. “Oh Eddie, that wasn’t a joke.”

Eddie groans tossing his hands up in the air so annoyed. “I’m leaving you, Richie, I’m really leaving you this time around.” He goes to the door about to open it all while Richie continues to sit. “I’m not. . .I’m not really leaving you, you know that right?”

“Yeah, of course,” says Richie.

“Ok, so. . .we should. . .leave together then?”

Richie grins and hops out of bed. “Sounds good to me.” He practically skips over to Eddie struggling to get his shoes back on and realizes Eddie is without them. He comes up beside Richie squeezing his cheek. “Eddie Spaghetti, you forgetting something?” He points at Eddie’s feet then continues on heading downstairs to the tavern where the others are waiting and then also Bev and Bill are outside. Bill. That’s the weird part he has no interest in talking about from all the world expressions. Richie stops mid hallway to look back. Eddie is out of the room walking fast to catch up to him. Again, Richie grins real big making sure Eddie sees this. He could’ve sworn, could’ve sworn, could’ve sworn that before he first fell asleep he’d been somewhere else like a football game thinking about. . .a mixtape.

“What?” Eddie says because Richie is all stares again.

“Oh. . .nothing. . .” Richie walks beside him. “I think I’m just hungry. Are we gonna have to steal some food to eat?”

“I hope not.” Eddie stops looking downstairs.

And Richie walks around him, he heads down first looking at Eddie. Richie pauses to balance on the railings and above the steps. He leans his head back to look at Eddie. “Oh, I hope so. The fun is just about to begin.” He hops down to walk. How stupid. A football game? No, he’d been at the tavern all along.


	3. III.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter The Bowers Gang or. . .The Highwayman?

# III.

Bev sighs while she stares at the tavern none of the boys are out yet. It's been raining, too. She sits on a post in the stable staring at the building while some horse stands there staring at her. A few times she glances at the horse only to look away not in the mood for it. Bev flies to a different post away from the horse thinking it’s about time she went up to the window or sneak in to bother the boys.

“H-H-H-Hey,” the horse says to her.

“No thanks,” replies Bev.

“I’m B-B-Bill.”

"Goodbye."

Bev leaves flying to a window at the tavern looking inside spotting Richie hopping off the steps while Eddie is yelling something at him. Mike and Ben are sitting at a table, minding their own business while somebody appears to be singing on the stage. She uses her wing to push the window open enough to creep in just enough.

“Psst! Rich-Richie! Richie!” 

Somehow he hears her over all the conversations and the bad singing on the stage. Richie comes over to her as Eddie sits with the rest. Richie stands by the window looking at Bev. “What?”

“Come on, can’t we go?” she asks.

“No, I’m hungry.”

“I’m hungry, too! What have you been doing?”

Richie shrugs. “I don’t know, sleeping. What’ve you been doing?”

“ _Richie_ , this isn’t a conversation,” retorts Bev.

“Oh, ok, sorry then. I’m gonna go eat. Do you want me to bring you some food?”

Bev peers around him as a server takes the orders at the table then she looks back at Richie. “Do you guys have money?”

“No, but Eddie is going to pretend he found glass in his food.”

Bev loudly groans and flies off back to the stable leaving Richie there to roll his eyes. He walks over to the table grabbing onto a chair and sits on it backward, the back faces the table as he leans into it while Eddie sits beside them looking about as stressed as always, both his hands on the table as he stares into a cup of water with a little fly floating around at the top.

“Does anybody have money?” Richie asks.

Mike stands up. “Um. . .outside. . .I’ll be back.” 

With this, he takes off leaving them behind. Richie watches him go and Ben is busy eating while Eddie hasn’t looked away from the fly in his water. Richie taps Eddie getting him to change his focus for a split second. No more fly, just him. Eddie mouths a quick what. Richie shrugs. Again, Eddie mouths WHAT but it’s almost like he says it louder.

“I don’t know! Why’s his money outside?” responds Richie.

“I don’t know! I don’t really know the guy!” Eddie looks back at his water. “I have bigger issues here.”

“Do you think I could order a beer?” Richie looks up at the server as she comes by looking at him. “Two beer.” She rolls her eyes and walks away.

“Two?” snaps Eddie.

“Yeah, one for you and one for me. Or maybe two for me and like maybe you’ll be attractive for a change.” Richie smirks at him and Eddie stares as hard as he can at his fly water, but Richie makes it worse by sticking his fingers in and getting it out. Eddie wrinkles his nose. “What? It was bothering you.”

Ben pauses. “Yeah, why is his money outside?”

“SEE!”

Eddie pushes his water away a bit. “I’m just gonna get another one.”

The server returns slamming two pints of beer before them. Richie laughs as he pulls one drink closer to himself and one for Eddie who only wrinkles his nose at it and pushes it back. Some of the beer splashes out onto the table. “WOW! Party Foul, Eds.”

“I wanna go home,” is all Eddie ends up saying to this.

“You heard what happened to his family, right?” comments Ben.

Both Richie and Eddie look at each other. Richie sits there sipping his drink leaving Eddie to answer. “Um, no, how would we seeing we’re not from fucking around here.”

“Oh, right.” Ben pauses. “I honestly only learned about thirty minutes ago when we were talking.”

“Wow, wow, so you should-you should probably tell that story.”

Richie nods to add the conversation.

Although Ben opens his mouth to say something when a door slams shut. They glance to see some talk, lanky guy with long black hair walk in and lean into the door. The server walks towards him saying something, he knocks the food she’s carrying from her hand onto the ground. Richie, Eddie, and Ben continue to stare at him. Somebody stomps on some of the stairs, coming down. Their hair is bleach blond and they hop down on the last step lighting a cigarette and keeps on smoking even as somebody protests.

“So people call his dad the Woodsman and he was some sort of judge up until something happened, Mike didn’t really explain but they had to move, ended up at the Grist Mill. Out there or really anywhere here it gets weird because of It. Anyway, Mike was telling me his mom was injured one day, she kept talking about some large bird then one day they found her lying on the ground like she fell from a tree, all these broken branches were all over the place, too. She died a few days later.”

“Is this a sad story?” Richie interrupts.

Ben and Eddie glares at Richie. “Yes, _Richie_ , this is a sad story, _Richie_!” snaps Eddie. “He just said Mike’s mom died! Of course, that’s a sad story.”

“SORRY!” Richie groans. “I don’t know what they mean when they keep saying It. For all I know, there was a miracle by the end of this story.”

Once again, Ben gets back to his story. Whoever was on stage, is gone leaving some silence around them other than the tavern murmurs. Richie looks to the window. It’s still open from Bev who appears to be long gone. He thinks about going out there instead as Ben keeps on talking and talking with basically just Eddie listening to him. Richie’s brain feels split, words sort of blur like his vision without glasses and there’s a whole lot going on all around them. The guy by the door and the guy on the step then nobody on the stage and somebody else cleaning up the fallen food disaster and an open window with no Bev.

“Then Mike’s dad, the Woodsman, also started to see the giant bird, everywhere he went. Couldn’t even sleep, thought he could hear it inside. Nowhere was safe. I mean, nowhere is safe with It afoot. Mike said one day he waited for his dad to come home. But he didn’t. Mike did the final chores for the day. Still, no dad. He made dinner for two, sat there until the candle went out. The next day was the same. On the third day, Mike decided to go out into the woods only to find the same scenario. Broken branches all around Mike’s dad, he was lying there, trying to crawl his way back but his legs were broken. The Woodsman told him it was the bird that did this to him. But Mike couldn’t get his dad back and so. . .”

“What do you think Bev is doing right now?” Richie interrupts looking at them.

“Beep, beep!” snaps Eddie.

“What? I feel bad, she’s alone out there.”

“Why can’t you just be nice for once?”

Richie shrugs. “I don’t know, your mom always tells me that being naughty is my best feature.”

Ben shakes his head and takes the beer he got Eddie to drink instead. “Is he always like this?”

Eddie sits there sort of smiling at Richie. “Yeah, something like that.”

Somebody gets up onto the stage, some of the murmurs stop and Ben keeps drinking Eddie’s beer leaving Richie alone to his and Eddie never got clean water. Not to mention, Mike hasn’t made it back yet. Some guy is up on the stage with a mullet. Richie slowly leans closer to Eddie about to whisper some jokes about the guy’s hair but before he can even get his mouth open, Eddie uses both his hands to cover his face and push him away.

Whoever is on the stage announces real loud, “I’m the highwayman!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, I don't think anybody missed this but sorry it's been a hot sec. Turns out, Scarlet Fever really does suck and like school.


	4. IV.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An "Apocalyptic" Food Fight

# IV.

To be honest, Mike has no idea why he even left the tavern for money considering he didn’t have any on him. If he were to get money, he’d need to walk all the way back to the Grist Mill, but it’s gone now. 

But out there he leaves the tavern heading straight to the woods with all thoughts on how he shouldn’t walk out there, but, oh, he did. He really did keep walking on. He passes the stable without paying attention to them even with Bev washing as Bill tries to talk to her. He’s out there doing his best to guess her name, which is really just terrible.

_L-L-Leslie?_

_Anne?_

_J-J-J-Julie?_

_T-Tammy?_

His voice fades into the background with Mike’s thoughts growing a whole lot louder with every bit of his brain warning him to turn away, get away, run away. This isn’t a good idea. None of this is good. Yet Mike keeps walking on. Small black turtles scatter away from his feet as he approaches a single lantern on the ground. He stops and looks at it with his shadow leaping around him. The sounds of the tavern are all gone and Bill’s bad guesses. Even when Bev’s wings flutter, not a sound. She lands on a branch looking at Mike who simply stands in front of the lantern not looking up.

It is afoot.

Bev opens her mouth about to ask any question, anything to break the silence but she can’t find it in her to speak as something moves towards them. All the trees tremble as something huge approaches. She doesn’t know any of the stories about the large birds in the woods. Something lurking out there is making its way fast to Mike who looks up and all of the shuddering stops.

_WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!_ words boom behind Bev startling her off the branch, if she were more human than bird, she’d scream. There’s nothing there and she plummets down almost hitting the ground, which moves and moves and moves while all the little black turtles are moving around nonstop. Bev stretches her wings out taking flight, she soars up a bit heading towards the stable but the trees move and Mike says nothing. She glances back at him as he takes the lantern from the ground as something reaches out towards him, some shadow, but it’s hard to tell with all the turtles moving on the ground.

_WAIT, DON’T GO!_ Bev exhales and pauses on a branch. She looks back to see the trees have moved in her way. She thinks about yelling for Mike but that’s not Mike’s voice. _COME BACK!_ Her thoughts consider the idea of moving, she needs to get out there and she needs to fly away from there except she can’t figure out how to fly again, her wings feel weighed down and maybe broken. _It’s ok, no need to fly, we all float here._

###

Eddie swats at Richie who sits there casually drinking with their apparent highwayman up on the stage. He talks back and forth glaring at the people in the crowd. But Richie pretends this isn’t anything. Still, Eddie swats while holding his bad arm close to him.

“This is the Bowers Gang!” the guy announces up on the stage. “I want you all to empty your pockets and drop your stuff with those jerks.” He references the one on the steps and the other by the door.

Whoever is on the steps gets up kicking the legs out from under a chair. The person in it slams face-first into the table as the guy digs into the pockets to take something. The other guy starts moving, but the table by him starts to toss their valuables at the guy and his bag.

“We should do something,” Ben mutters.

“No, I like to live.”

But Richie hops out of his seat spilling a bit of beer in the process. He yells, “FOOD FIGHT!” Without waiting for a second more, he throws the drink onto the guy on the stage before grabbing some bread from the table and tossing this, too. Ben joins as Eddie sinks under the table. Food flies everywhere. Some hits Richie square in the face knocking his glasses to the ground. He stumbles back a bit and sits there as food rains down around them. Eddie scoots closer to Richie grabbing his glasses and putting them back on after Richie wipes some food from his face.

“We should go,” Eddie comments.

Richie stares at him.

“Really! We should go!” Eddie almost shouts.

Richie continues to stare at him, he uses what he can of his sweatshirt sleeve to wipe off his glasses and puts them back on. “Yeah, yeah, we really should get the fuck out of here.” 

Meanwhile, Eddie reaches out poking Ben in the back of the leg and he crouches down beside them. And Eddie tells him, “We should go.”

Ben just nods.

There’s some screaming and the three look up to see Bev joining the crowd. Mike, too. Bev flies through a window noticing the fight and starts to peck away at the one guy in the Bowers Gang closest to her. Mike throws open the door to find the mess. He grabs some old broken umbrella there and starts to whack the other guy over and over again.

Richie, Eddie, and Ben crawl across the floor, as best they can. The whole time Richie helps steady Eddie because he’s missing his one arm in action thanks to the break. Richie pauses though as they are so close to the door. He looks as if he is about to jump up but Eddie holds onto him by the wrist. “My frog friend!” Richie protests.

“No, come on.”

“We can’t leave him!” Except Richie can’t pop on up while Eddie still hangs on tight to his wrist.

His frog though makes an appearance on the stage. Whoever is up there trips over the frog and Richie breaks free from Eddie. He sprints across the room while Ben makes a way for the exit with Mike already following him, but not Eddie, who sits there watching as Richie jumps onto the stage. He kicks the guy in the crotch, swipes the frog off the stage and makes a whole other run again across the room to get the rest of them out of there. Bev flies beside Richie.

“We got a wagon to go,” she says.

“Oh?” replies Richie.

“We can’t stay here.”

“Yeah.” Richie comes up and pushes Eddie up and out of the tavern. 

Outside Ben and Mike are sitting in a wagon with Bill hanging out there, the horse ready to pull them along. Bev flutters around his head. “Just go straight.”

Richie boots Eddie into the wagon before climbing in himself. He sits there looking at the tavern as it continues to linger in its absolute chaos. Bev lands on Richie’s shoulder as the two watch the tavern disappear. The only light is a lantern Mike has with him, right by his feet as he attempts to figure out the reins and Bill just charges on.

“We have a problem,” Bev says.

“What’s that?” Eddie almost interrupts, but they’re not listening to him. It’s only Ben who looks as Mike focuses as much as he can on the road ahead. A red balloon is caught in some branches. “I’ve seen that before.”

“What’s the problem?” Richie still watches the tavern. “You forgot to get to Adelaide’s.”

“No, it’s something I saw.”

Richie peers at her sucking in his lip. “Um, ok, what’s that supposed to mean.”

Bev lowers her voice, even more, causing him to really strain to hear what she says next. “I saw Mike out there in the woods, I think-I think he’s working with It.”

“Ok, people keep saying that without any explanation so could you like fill me the fuck in?” Richie snaps all while keeping his voice low.

“It. . .” starts Bev using her head to signal to Mike and Richie looks to the front of the wagon where Mike sits protecting the lantern. “It turns children into trees, which then are turned into oil for the lantern.”

Richie sits real quiet for several seconds before whispering, “Good thing we’re not kids anymore.”

“ _Richie_. . .we're all kids.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying this, please drop a comment.
> 
> Stan Uris is about to enter but next time as Quincy Endicott in "Mad Love."
> 
> P.S. Srry, I wrapped this up and plan on coming back to maybe do some minor edits. I just feel like I need to move onto the next installment.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still having fun with this and hope somebody else out there is enjoying this, too. If you enjoy this, pls let me know.
> 
> P.S. Don't worry, Stanley Uris will make an appearance soon but it won't be until Mad Love. Then it'll Losers Club for the rest of the time.


End file.
